California Labor Lawsuit Filed against Trucking Company

May 17, 2013 3 Comments

By Heidi Turner

Los Angeles, CA California labor lawsuits, alleging California employers violate federal and California state labor law, often involve employees claiming they were misclassified so the employer can avoid paying overtime wages. One way that an employer can violate California labor law is to misclassify employees as contractors, which is what one lawsuit against a California trucking company alleges has happened.

The Los Angeles Times (5/15/13) reports that truck drivers for a southern California trucking company have filed a lawsuit against the company alleging they were misclassified as independent contractors so their employer could avoid paying them overtime and giving them breaks.

The plaintiffs allege that rather than being independent contractors they acted as employees by driving trucks owned by the company. The Times article notes that five lawsuits were filed by Attorney General Jerry Brown against California trucking companies, alleging they violated state labor laws and misclassified employees as independent contractors.

Meanwhile, three contractors have been fined a total of $1.8 million for violations of public works regulations. A news release issued by California Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su noted that the companies willfully violated labor law and affected 94 workers in the process.

“Let these enforcement actions serve as notice that wage theft - whether it be through nonpayment of overtime, failure to pay proper prevailing wage, underreporting of hours worked, bounced checks used to pay working people, and cheating on apprenticeship training funds - will not be tolerated in this state,” said Labor Commissioner Su.

One contractor was ordered to pay almost $550,000 in wages and $650,000 in fines for not properly paying employees. According to the labor commissioner, the company also falsified documents and intimidated workers in an effort to prevent the commissioner’s investigation. A second contractor was ordered to pay $275,000 in wages and almost $125,000 in fines after being found to pay much less than the prevailing wage for its project, and failing to pay proper overtime.

The third contractor was ordered to pay more than $180,000 in wages and $30,000 in penalties for misclassifying workers in an attempt to pay them less, for underreporting hours and for issuing checks without enough funds.

Area of Law Wage & Hour

Industry Transportation

3 Comments

manraj singh
March 12, 2015

i m truck driver .i drive company truck.my boss not paying me .also he whitout any notic fire me.also he keep my all stuff like laptop gps all my prosnal stuff .pls help me what i do.
T Barron
February 12, 2015

All Trucking Companies try not to pay overtime and do not give you time to take a break or lunch except at the end of the day and that's after 10 to 14 hours of being a Delivery & Pickup Driver and then they make you take lunch before you go home or they will take away that 30 minutes and lose pay! Over The Road Drivers do not get overtime ever unless you work for a big Union company like UPS. Also new Federal Law says a Driver must take a break after 8 hours on-duty before you can keep driving but in a City P&D operation you don't have to use a Log-Book and the company makes you LIE about it and that's why Drivers need On-Board Electronic Log-Books to stop this Bull Sh*t!! I got Fried for taking my lunch on time and because my truck was not rolling after 30 minutes because I was doing some paper work and looking at dispatch orders for the rest of the day I was let go after 18 years of service for Con-Way/CWX and was never written up ever on this before at UMO and the manager lied about it because he hated me and said on his Facebook page that MEXICAN 's are Lazy and hates Women Drivers. And he still works for them in Southern Oregon! Central Point Ice Cream Drive and I worked my Butt off for them and was dedicated and Lived for them to be the Bedt LTL Company EVER and I was Kicked out for doing my Job and following the Law
Bobby Mitchell
June 5, 2013

Wage dispute